Two undergraduate student teams of SCUT emerged in over 300 teams from around the world and bagged two golds at this year’s International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM 2017) that was concluded in Boston, US, this month.

Team SCUT-FSE-CHINA from the School of Food Science and Engineering was only set up at the end of last year and made a stunning debut at iGEM’s annual jamboree. Except for capturing one gold, the team’s project was also nominated the Best New Application Project.

This project, “Robust E. coli for fermentation”, developed a type of Escherichia coli that can effectively resist pollution caused by bacteria and bacteriophages during fermentation, and provided a new method of saving energy and cost for enterprises.

The other gold-winning team, SCUT-China A, was from the School of Biology and Biological Engineering. Since 2013, members of this team has been keeping an extraordinary record at the iGEM competitions by claiming three golds, four silvers, two bronzes, and two nominations for single awards.

The team’s project of this year was “A novel reporter device based on SRRz lysis gene applied to heavy metal detection”. This reporter device was designed to rapidly probe specific heavy metal ions in water, and can be useful to detect water pollution.

Organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the iGEM Foundation, the iGEM competition is a worldwide leading synthetic biology competition that requires participants to showcase multidisciplinary abilities combining biology, computer science, mathematics, and other fields. During the event, iGEM teams unveil scientific solutions to solve real-world challenges, and thus to create a positive contribution to their communities and the world.

In 2017, the competition took place from November 9 to 13 and hosted 310 student-led teams from 44 countries, including teams of Harvard University, MIT, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford.